Rockets Survive Doubters, `Ugly Ball'

Suns Test Made 'em Believers

June 24, 1994|By Sam Smith, Tribune Pro Basketball Writer.

HOUSTON — The Houston Rockets were the better team-the best team, after all, in the way they won the NBA title.

Opening the season with a record 15 straight victories and 22 in 23 games, beating defending Western Conference champ Phoenix after being down 0-2, then Eastern Conference ruler New York after trailing 3-2 qualifies the Rockets as true champions.

"This team hung together," said Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who emerged from the series as a down-to-earth good guy. "We had some cracks, like in an egg shell, but we think about that Phoenix series . . ."

The Rockets not only lost the first two games at home but blew the biggest lead in playoff history to spur "Choke City" headlines.

"And we hadn't beaten them in their arena, but we pulled together," recalled Tomjanovich. "That made us believe there was nothing out there we couldn't conquer if we held together."

To the surprise of many who had doubts about Houston's erratic guards and low-scoring forwards, the Rockets did sustain against the Knicks.

"It seemed like a boxing match," said Tomjanovich in the most appropriate analogy for these Finals, "where you take a haymaker, take a few steps back and come back at them.

"We made a lot of great plays. Our guards took a lot of negative press during this series, but without them stepping up late (32 points on 10-for-18 shooting in Game 7 and a clinching three-pointer by Vernon Maxwell), we could not have done it.

"We have a great player and he's our focus," Tomjanovich said of Hakeem Olajuwon, "but he respects the other players and works with them. And now I'm the proudest guy in the world."

But the credit the Rockets so richly deserve probably will not be forthcoming, as even they seem to know. "If we don't get respect now," said Otis Thorpe, "something's wrong."

These Finals created that kind of feeling. It was the lowest-scoring seven-game series ever, both teams averaging fewer than 90 points and neither scoring 100 in any game for the first time in a seven-game series.

It was "Ugly Ball" and "Bully Ball." It was the series that cause TV ratings to plummet, one nobody wanted to watch because of the painful nature of the games, so many missed shots and mistakes.

Most notable about this series seemed to be the calls for rules changes, for moving in the three-point line, altering the zone-defense rules, widening the lane to stop that awful pattern of dropping the ball to the center and everyone waiting for the double-team, a pass out, ball rotation and a rushed shot.

But the NBA already was changing, and it's no fault of the Knicks or Rockets. Longtime critics got what they wanted: games contested throughout, everyone playing defense.

The problem is, there aren't enough good offensive players to overcome that; the talent continues to get spread out in the after-effects of expansion. There were a record seven former CBA players in the Finals. Not too long ago, there weren't that many in the league.

When the rewards are great, as in the playoffs, players become more careful and scoring decreases. Factor in a talent drain with the loss in a short time of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Isiah Thomas, Drazen Petrovic and Reggie Lewis, and the aesthetics will suffer.

But the Rockets and Knicks survived everything the rest of the league could offer and competed as well as they could. They were teams dominated by centers without skilled perimeter players, but they produced a well-contested series.

"So much was said about this series," Knicks coach Pat Riley noted about the charges of bad basketball winning, "but it was so even and everyone gave everything they had, and it went to the Rockets. They have to be considered a great team.

"They are led by a great player, and this championship will kick him over the top. He's the MVP, defensive player of the year. They worked hard for what they got, and Hakeem got his ring and he deserves it."